1. Field
The embodiments discussed herein are related to a directional sound source filtering apparatus using a microphone array to selectively amplify sound sources by beamforming sound source signals detected by the microphone array, and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable devices to make phone calls, recode sound, or capture video have become a necessity of modern life.
Various digital devices, such as consumer electronic devices, cellular phones, and digital camcorders, and in-vehicle speech recognition devices use microphones to capture sound sources.
Sound sources captured using such digital devices may contain noise and interference sound due to a variety of environmental factors.
When capturing audio and video simultaneously through digital devices, only sound sources corresponding to an image area should be amplified for transmission. However, since sound source signals may exhibit strong diffraction, sound sources outside the image area may be combined with sound sources within the image area, causing interference or noise. Therefore, a method and apparatus to collect only sound within an image area while effectively eliminating sound outside the image area are needed.
A method and apparatus have been developed to discern location information of a speaker by recognizing the speaker's face from image information of a camera and to amplify only sound source information obtained from the location information of the speaker. However, this method requires image processing for face recognition, and the image processing performance for face recognition affects the performance of selective amplification of sound sources.